Story Highlights

No neighborhood, socioeconomic status or age is immune to its devastating effects. Tennessee’s communities are certainly no exception. Every day, it is estimated that opioids kill at least three people in our state, with 1,100 overdose opioid-related deaths occurring every year.

The deaths of these individuals rarely receive the media attention of unexpected deaths from other causes such as violent crime and motor vehicle accidents. Few of us have not seen friends and family affected.

As a primary care physician who practiced in Tennessee for 15 years, I am compelled to play an active role in addressing this issue in our communities.

A Leon County sheriff's deputy in Florida shoots a family's dog in its own yard while visiting without telling family members to just put him up or on a leash. The cartoonist's homepage, tallahassee.com/opinion Nathan Archer, Tallahassee Democrat

The farm bill, which included stricter work requirements for receiving food stamps, failed May 18, 2018, in the House of Representatives. The cartoonist's homepage, freep.com/opinion/mike-thompson Mike Thompson, Detroit Free Press

More than two years ago, Cigna committed to a national strategy of aggressively fighting the opioid crisis by reducing exposure to opioids in our communities

In partnership with more than 1.1 million providers across the country, we reached our goal to reduce our customers’ opioid use by 25 percent by 2019 a year ahead of schedule.

And in 2018 in Knoxville, Cigna sponsored the East Tennessee Opioid Conference, where local experts and healthcare professionals discussed the challenges our communities face due to the opioid epidemic and ways the healthcare community can join together to defeat it.

Sharing evidence-based data and expertise is essential to changing the conversation about substance use disorders, taking away the stigma and finding solutions that can help.

Opioids have become an insidious part of our culture. The rise in opioid prescriptions is partly due to well-intentioned efforts by healthcare providers to treat their patients’ pain.

We must reduce accidental overdoses

We now know that 1 in 5 people has an increased risk of long-term opioid use — and therefore opioid addiction — with only a 10-day prescription.

That’s why Cigna launched the “1 in 5 Campaign” to help educate providers and consumers before an opioid prescription is written, offer resources on pain and suggest ways to manage it safely.

The fight against opioid use disorders continues and the next goal is to reduce accidental overdoses, which continue to rise despite the overall decreasing use of prescription opioids.

Jim Lancaster(Photo: Submitted)

Cigna is instituting additional safety measures to minimize the risk of medications that are more likely to cause an opioid overdose. This includes limiting the duration of certain opioid prescriptions to align with guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and making sure daily dosage measurements don’t exceed established safe levels for prescribing quantities.

We pledge to continue raising awareness among healthcare professionals and our communities that there are effective options for treatment of chronic pain that lessen or eliminate the need for addictive opioids. We believe the best approach is an integrated one that addresses the underlying cause to enable true recovery from the source of pain rather than simply medicating the symptoms.